


Pushing Dandelions

by aimmyarrowshigh



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, Pushing Daisies
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Pushing Daisies, F/M, Gen, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-05-22
Packaged: 2017-12-12 15:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/813332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimmyarrowshigh/pseuds/aimmyarrowshigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You never forget the face of the person whose life you saved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pushing Dandelions

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings** : THG-canon compliant character death; minor character death.  
>  **Disclaimer** : I don't own anything. All characters, settings, and proprietary language are owned by the author of the work from which this is derived.

** Pushing Dandelions **

**  
_001._   
**  
When Peeta Mellark was five years old, he and his father meant to collect honey for the nut pies Mayor Undersee needed for the Victory Tour stop in District Twelve (a surly boy from District Two; he’d killed Cannel with a crossbow, and now Peeta had to help bake him pies).

There was no way to know that the hive had been overtaken by trackerjackers until the smoke made them angry instead of sleepy and quiet-calm. 

His father had been stung, and Peeta, terrified, had touched his arm.

And then he wasn’t dead anymore.

A minute later, the trackerjackers fell like an angry hailstorm of crunching black shells and reaching feelers.

“Don’t tell your mother,” Mr. Mellark whispered. Peeta agreed, and sat on his hands.

**_002._**  
By the time Peeta was nine, they bakery had been investigated by budget insurers from the Capitol because they seemed to spend so little on ingredients, even the expensive ones that needed shipping in from District Eleven: limes and peaches and mayhaws. 

The secret, of course, was that at Mellark Bakery, they couldn’t go bad. One touch from Peeta, and the fruit was full and ripe again and just dripping with juice ready for baking or canning for sale. They kept a tank of fish swimming in the kitchen near his workstation, and when they fish floated belly-up, they were made into meat pies topped with potato. 

The budget investigator had veins of gold and copper tattooed into his skin. “Why are you stocking moldy fruit, Mr. Mellark?”

And Mr. Mellark had played his role perfectly. “Well, it’s cheaper, see. We’re not so lucky in District Twelve, so people’ll take what they can pay fer.”

It ended up giving them the dual blessing of Peacekeepers no longer dominating the lunch rush. They wanted their food fresh.

**_003._**  
But of course, it wasn’t a lie. Some people in District Twelve would take anything they could get, even moldy fruit or fish that had been dead too long or bread that was horribly burnt (a real mistake, not magic).

When Peeta was twelve, Katniss Everdeen collapsed behind the bakery while digging through their empty trash bins.

He ran outside and touched her face.

Katniss blinked up at him.

Peeta mother came crashing through the door to shoo Katniss away, _Seam brat_ , and one minute later, Katniss was alive-again but Mrs. Mellark was dead, forever.

**_004._**  
Peeta barely saw Katniss after that, because it was too hard to explain to someone that you’d brought them back from the dead. All she knew was that she’d watched his mother keel over and die, and what Peeta had done was hand Katniss a few loaves of bread and two apples so shiny she could see her face in their skins. He watched her, though, always. You never forget the face of the person whose life you saved.

But when they were sixteen, Prim Everdeen’s name came out of the Reaping Ball, and so did Peeta’s. Katniss and Peeta were headed for the Arena, and Peeta thought it was a good trick: the girl from District Twelve, skilled at killing; the boy from District Twelve, able to bring the dead back to life.

**_005._**  
The Gamemakers weren’t paying any attention to Peeta when he went in for his Training score. They were too busy being rich and drunk, eating cream cakes and fruit pies from ingredients that had never been dead – and salivating, lascivious, at a whole hog lacquered with glaze, apple in its mouth, at the center of the table.

They weren’t paying attention, at least, until Peeta went right up to the table and touched the pig.

**_006._**  
Peeta Mellark: 12.

“What did you do?” Katniss asked, her gray eyes narrowed like she already knew.

Peeta smirked. Katniss had made Effie nearly need smelling salts when she told that her skill had been shooting the wild pig rampaging the judging hall, for which she’d earned an 11. “You undid it.” 

Katniss just frowned. Peeta knew she was thinking of his mother.

**_007._**  
It was pretty easy to get the Careers to agree to be his false allies. Cato took a bad axe in the back during the Bloodbath, and Peeta took it away. A minute later, the District 6 girl dropped where she stood. Her sword clattered onto the rocky ground and rang like a cymbal.

“What are you?” Clove asked. She poked Peeta’s cheek with the butt of her dagger.

“A baker,” Peeta said. “But I can keep you alive.”

“Does it work the other way?” asked Glimmer. “Can you touch someone dead?”

Peeta shook his head, but his face pinched. “I’ve never tried. I don’t think so.”

“That’s a pretty stupid skill.” Marvel holstered his mace into his utility belt. “Undead-ing people in a game where you have to be the last person not-dead.”

Peeta held up both hands and the Careers backed away an inch. They’d heard things about people from District Twelve. “I said I hadn’t tried. Not that I can’t do it.”

He touched one finger to Cato’s face right between the eyes.

**_008._**  
First touch: life.  
Second touch: dead. Again. Forever.

**_009._**  
They didn’t have to know that, though. They all assumed, and the sponsors did, too, that Peeta’s touch could give and taketh away in equal measure. It was okay that Peeta’s leg was cut by one of the District Four boy’s throwing stars as he ran away to hide in the mud, because he had more Sponsorship gifts pouring in than he knew what to do with. Medicine. Bandages. Fresh water. Food.

All he had to do was keep hidden, and once he and Katniss were the last two left, someone from District Twelve would go home.

**_010._**  
At the end of the Games, the Arena was very quiet. 

“Shoot me,” Peeta murmured. “It’s alright. You have Prim.”

Katniss set down her bow. “I owe you.”

“You can shoot me,” Peeta offered again. “That would be okay.”

“Animals run away from me,” Katniss said thoughtfully. “When I hunt. And not the way they run away from Gale. They run away from me because I smell like death.” She shook her head then. “There can only be one Victor. And you’re the only one who isn’t dead. You won.” 

She turned her face up to the sky and called, “You hear that? Peeta Mellark of District Twelve is the only Tribute still alive. Peeta Mellark is the Victor.”

It took the Capitol an hour to debate, but they sent the hovercraft all the same: the rules were only that one living Victor had to leave the Arena. Katniss Everdeen wasn’t alive, and hadn’t been since she was twelve years old. 

The Capitol had no contingency plan for Tributes who were alive-again. So for the first time, and the last, two Tributes – but one Victor – were sent home to District Twelve. 

“Can you make those nut pies with honey for the Victory party?” Katniss asked on their way.

Peeta smiled and sat on his hands. “I can.”

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End file.
